In fact, Anderson almost played instead of Bass in the first half of the season opener. Van Gundy said that if Yi Jianlian had been on the floor when the Magic did their substitutions in the first quarter, Anderson – not Bass – would have played the backup minutes at power forward.

Against the Heat, Van Gundy thought Bass would be a better matchup against Chris Bosh, although he admitted Anderson did a nice job on Bosh in the second half.

The two player's position battle is far from over. There's no clear-cut backup power forward at this point, and it doesn't appear if the situation will shake itself out anytime soon. For now, the team will continue to play the matchups.

"Those guys have both been so good through this whole first month, I don't want to bury either one of them on the bench," Van Gundy said. "I think it's too important to our team that we keep both of them alive and working and getting better, so that we have the flexibility of working with them both."

Back to basics

The Magic continued to work on two fundamental basketball principles at practice on Monday: passing and screening.

The Magic's ball movement was clearly a problem in the 96-70 loss to Miami — the Magic finished with a franchise-low five assists — and they've been working on offensive drills that promote teamwork and ball movement.

"We haven't spent a lot of time on working on consciously passing the ball," Magic coach Van Gundy said. "We're going to incorporate some things in our daily practice where we're specifically working on passing."

Screening was another huge weak point in the game against Miami. Too often, the Magic big men rolled toward the hoop before adequately screening the Heat defender. The big men worked on setting hard, solid screens and following through with the screen until the offensive player is past.

"It' something we really need to do because when other teams screen, they screen; you feel it," Magic point guard Jameer Nelson said. "Today and yesterday, when our guys set screens, they screen. It didn't feel good to get screened, but it felt good that they were screening."

Layups

Tuesday night's game will air on 96.5 FM, rather than the usual AM 580 WDBO, because of election coverage.

Nelson said he isn't taking it personally that the team's passing is under scrutiny. "Everybody on the team has to pass better for us to pass better," he said. "It's not just me or anyone else."

The Magic won't have an official shootaround this morning because of a previously scheduled event at Madison Square Garden.